The Lion and The Badger Part 1
by Fantastic-Lies
Summary: Hannah and Neville didn't just fall in love. They battled through it, especially as Neville is sure he's already met the love of his life in Luna. Watch them fall in love in four parts... This is the first, set in the seventh year.
1. PreChapter

**This is just a Pre Chapter**

**First Chapter up tomorrow**

**This story belongs and is dedicated to JK Rowling :)**

_Hannah Abbott took a swig of firewisky and laid her head upon the sticky bar counter. Aberforth gave it to her so that she didn't cry, even though she too felt she was much too young to become dependent on it. He like everyone else in this world had seen far too many tears, many that he hated to recall, many spilt from eyes as beautiful as Hannah's electric blue ones. __The walls were bright with a yellow glow that hadn't been seem in Hogwarts since the fall of dumbledore, since the golden trio had disapeared and taken with them all signs of hope. But a foggy darkness clouded Hannah's mind. She was alone. _

_Aberforth hated that students who were a part of the DA had slowly become regulars in his bar, Hannah knew it, but she couldn't keep herself away. Greif surged through her veins like ice, tightening her skin, making her feel clammy and hard as stone. Firewisky however had a knack for making you feel warm, like happiness was real. A feeling Hannah hadn't been able to find since her mother died. Since death reared its ugly head and robbed her of her innocence._

"_Alright, Han?" Aberforth muttered, knowing she wasn't._

"_Fine." She replied, knowing he wouldn't believe her._

_It was just in that moment that a boy slid himself into the chair beside her. Neville Longbottom appeared not to be the pudgy, lonely, hopeless little boy he had been. Except when you looked into his eyes, at the right time of night, when hope drained from the world faster than you could say dementor. _

_He has bags under his eyes and gentle stubble across his chin, a thick purple bruise was nestled near his jaw, a little dried blood glistened on the side of his neck. He was their leader now, Dumbledore's army. Hannah didn't really know Neville well, he spent his days in silence. That is unless he was resisting the Carrows or whispering in Luna Lovegood's ear._

"_Hello Hannah." He slurred, unable to talk properly._

_Hannah bit her lip trying to figure out what to say. This was it. The greatest defence they had. Hannah couldn't help but be worried._


	2. Typical Gryffindor

**Chapter1**

* * *

><p><strong> Typical Gryffindor<strong>

**Neville/Luna/Hannah**

**Belongs and is dedicated to JK Rowling.**

_Hannah was eleven and had never liked herbology. It was difficult and it seemed to be an endless charade of Gryffindor showing off. Expect a few. Neville Longbottom always seemed a genuinely kind boy, a Hufflepuff at heart. He always smiled at Hannah, handed her things gently, meeting her eyes. Ernie always used to tell her looks were nothing, frivolous, but Hannah felt her imaginary friendship with the chubby bumbling boy was her own business. Being in her first year at school it was difficult to determine whether or not Neville had a particular talent but it certainly seemed that herbology was his expertise._

_Neville rocketed into the classroom four minutes late, apologising quickly to professor sprout and pulling on his dragon skin gloves. He smiled as he looked around the room and for just a moment he met Hannah's eyes. Then Hermione Granger stepped out and blocked the connection, no doubt trying to tell Neville something to help him in another subject._

_The lesson went on and Hannah never met Neville's eyes again that week. But for the rest of the year, simple glances, smiles and something more. Some glimmer of friendship deep in her eyes. But he remained true to the friends he had been sorted into._

"_Typical Gryiffindor."_

Hannah tapped her fingers on the bar, firewisky bubbling in front of her. She never spoke to Neville except on these nights. They came only once every few weeks but Hannah couldn't help but feel herself growing attached. Neville was slowly becoming her best friend, she felt jealously even from Ernie.

She knew Neville didn't return the level of friendship, Luna was his best friend. An absurd girl though she was even Hannah couldn't help but enjoy her company. After all she and Neville revived the DA, without them the Carrows would be unbearable, like torture in the dark no hope of knowing what came next. No, Neville and Luna gave them a light, a secret power. After all, darkness is a little less terrifying when you know someone is helping you through it.

They always met here, through the tunnel down in the hogs head pub. Firewisky sparkled in the dull warm lights; she swore she saw some of the ghosts fade from his eyes when they sat there.

"God she's bloody amazing." Neville's voice came from right beside Hannah and she jumped, sloshing butter beer onto the bar. Something in Hannah told her to greet him with a hug. But her brain glued her feet to the bar stools and she simply wobbled awkwardly.

"Well thank you, may I ask what I've done." She said beaming up at him.

Neville smiled and laughed but replied simply. "Luna made these toys of a Lion, Raven, Snake and Badger run around chasing each other. The lion ate the snake and the badger fell in love with the lion and the raven kept running around yelling riddles. It was quite hilarious."

Luna. Of course. Hannah forced a smile that she shouldn't have had too and looked up at Neville again. _The badger fell in love with the lion._

"Really love the DA, this is us doing something real you know. It's fantastic! I only wish more people would come." Neville grinned.

"You know Neville, I think we are doing enough for the moment. It's all we've got."

"You alright?" He muttered, his face falling in concern.

"Just a very long day." She said, trying to smile again.

"I... Oh," Neville said, a look of realisation dawning on his face. "Your mum. It's a year today isn't it?"

And like a small child experiencing sadness for the first time it ripped through her uncomfortably in a way she couldn't explain. She nodded. Neville stretched out his arm and reached it around her.

"She was beautiful you know. Perfect even, blonde hair always in curls. She used to do my hair, she gave me this brush with a spell on it. Gave me pigtails every time, doesn't work anymore." Hannah spluttered as she choked on the words.

Neville reached out and pushed a strand of her straight blonde hair behind her ears.

"I like it like this too." Neville smiled. Despite being a bit of a bumbley boy, he had the power to make you feel special with every touch. "Do you want to talk about her?"

"She was a bar lady. I loved being in bars with her. She was smart though, a Gryffindor too, my dad's the Hufflepuff. She'd let me sit on the bar counter, talk to the people in the bar. She used to get horrified looks from the wives who came to drag their husbands away, but there is no where I would have rather been." Hannah found herself smiling, but another wave of grief hit her.

There was a long and painful silence.

"I can't remember them. Not before they stopped being themselves. Little things sometimes make me think of them, a look in their eyes." Neville managed to mutter.

"Parents, as an idea, are fairly cruel, constant safety and love, but so easily taken from us." Hannah tried softly.

Then they stopped talking. They always seemed to manage to bear a small part of our souls to each other, and then realise what they've done and stay quiet.

"All of this, the DA, I feel like I have a family again, Luna's my best friend. I think it makes them proud." Neville said a tear in his eye.

"Lucky you." Hannah muttered bitterly

"Isn't Ernie your best friend, your family?"

"Ernie isn't my best friend."

After that nothing more was said. Neville didn't understand. Aberforth continued to pour them drinks. Hannah grew more and more tired. She couldn't say when Neville left, but she felt him let go of her hand.

"Sleeping on the bar again Miss Abbott?" Aberforth had a tone of grief in his voice, like he hated seeing her there, like there was nothing he wanted less than to have her at his bar. "He loves her."

"I know." Hannah replied.

"He won't know unless you tell him."

Hannah shook her head, taking a deep swig of what was now burnt out firewisky and spat under her breath angry, disappointed and depressed all at the same time.

"Typical Gryffindor."

**Hope you enjoyed!**

**Chapters will get longer as we get further in.**

**Review please :)**


	3. Of Hammocks and Heartache

**Typical Gryffindor**

**Neville/Luna/Hannah**

**Belongs and is dedicated to JK Rowling.**

**Also, the lay out and style of the room of requirement looking like the decks of an old ship is just how I see it, so yeah :) Enjoy and Review if you have comments or advice!**

Lying in her bunk in the room of requirement she could here people sleeping. It was the softest sound, the kind of sound that made you sure that if danger struck you would have to protect every dormant mind, every resting soul.

Nevilles farmiliar snorts, because it took someone like Neville to snore truly differently, came out of a dark corner. He had made this place, and it was like in exchanged they let him keep to himself; his bunk seperate. His dreams distant.

Something caught Hannahs eye over the sea of hammocks. On top of a bookshelf next to Nevilles bed was a small red box. It looked to be a childs music box, it had a dial which made it muggle made. Sleeplessness often tormented Hannah, thoughts of her beautiful mother infested her thoughts like a drug, making her feel an all time high yet leaving her to fall as she remembered her mother was gone. So she slipped from her bunk, tying her dresssing gown over the T-Shirt she wore to bed and sneaking amoung the sleeping boddies.

She knew she had no right, private property was private. But that bright red box was so intriguing and it was muggle made. No one had much muggle made stuff, and this box was so beautiful.

"_Lumos_." She murmured, sweeping her blonde hair out of her face and up into a bun.

She reached Nevilles corner quickly, it looked the captins quaters of an old ship. The walls were wooden and damp, neville slept in a army green hammock, his bruises less frightening in the half light of her wand. A photo in a tarnished frame sat at his side, his mother and father holding him as a baby. He was such a small baby. Neville turned and she felt her breath catch in her lungs, shoving her wand into her pocket to hide the light.

"I'm sorry. We couldn't save her. I'm so sorry. I know I know, I tried. Please don't she's everything. No. No. NO-" But the last of his sleeping rambles was lost as he turned over burying his face in his pillow with another deep snore.

Luna had returned only a few days ago, but Neville's nightmares of her dying had never stopped. He had told her about the, after she had found him screaming in his sleep. Luna was still being held by the death eaters. He was truly terrified she would never return, he dreamed of going to her father and telling him he couldn't save her. That she was long dead.

Hannah had listened and held him as he shook with anger and fear, the light in his eyes fading; determination leaving him and desperation ruling his thoughts. He seemed such a small boy, so young and vulnerable despite his battle scars. Hannah tried to silence her selfishness, her silent prayer that Luna would never return. It made her want to vommit, to run, to not be that girl that wants beyond the help of others. But it hurt so much to listen to him so desperately wanting her, when she so desperately wanted him. Her mother was dead and she shouldn't have wished that loss on anyone. But thats the cruelty of humanity, we never quite learn anything. Not really.

Opening the red box finally, she heard a soft tinkle and snapped the box shut.

_Idiot. Its a music box... they make noise. _Neville didn't stir though, he snores unbroken.

"_Silencio._" She whispered, casting a spell to silence the music. The music. She recognised it, she had heard it before, when she had left the empty room go to the bar with everyone else. The music had echoed up the hallway as she walked back from the bar early, the sound of tears adding their own vocals to the decaying piano song. Neville had cried when he opened this box.

Curiosity and selfishness to know Neville better than anyone, than Luna, pushed her to open the little wooden box. The song silenced by her spell, she saw its contents for the first time, it was filled to the brim with tiny sweet wrappers. An engraving into the top of the box read,

_We had this made for you dear Neville,_

_Our new baby boy,_

_Without magic so that one day you can listen to the music and remember we love you,_

_No matter who you are._

_Despite all we have done, YOU are our greatest triumpth._

_We love you forever,_

_Forever proud,_

_Your Mum and Dad._

A heat rose in Hannahs whole body as shen slumped to the floor leaning against the bookshelf, tears choked her eyes. She knew the message must mean the world to Neville. But she didn't understand the sweet wrappers. She had a feeling she had seem Neville with one of those wrappers before.

"Hannah?" Nevilles voice came.

She started and almost dropped the box.

"I- I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have- Private- I- Sorry!" She explained, dropping the box awkwardly onto his bunk and backing away her arms crossed as she backed away.

"Han, its alright." Neville seemed to be smiling.

"Thats such a beautiful message." Hannah trembled, still trying not to cry as Nevilled stepped down from his hammock and sat next to her, placing his arm around her shoulder.

He strocked her hair for a moment, until she was just hiccuping gently, tears gone.

"They give me hope you know. That I can do something, that we can. My gran made sure I always knew how great they were. How great I should be. The fact that they loved me so much, makes me wonder. If maybe they raised me. Maybe that I could have been stronger, acted out faster." He said, answering all the questions Hannah couldn't bring herself to ask.

"Its frightening. That its up to us." She giggled, something about the laughter just pushed itself up. Perfect for the moment.

"You know the sweet wrappers, they could help you as much as they help me, if you want. I keep them in there because-"

"Neville, have the wrackspurts woken you. I've heard them buzzing too." Came Luna's voice out of the dark.

Neville let go of Hannah like she had given him an electric shock, a grin spreading on his face at Luna's voice.

"No Looney, just helping Hannah with something, but she's going back to bed now." Neville used the nickname affectionately as he cruely cast Hannah aside. Neville suddenly looked scared he had upset Hannah, so she smiled. If only so that he would sleep soundly.

"Night Luna." Hannah said as kindly as could, brushing past Luna as she walked back to her hammock.

As she settled back into bed, she heard that Luna had walked over to Neville, they were probably huddled in his hammock.

"She's an quite a beautiful girl Hannah." Luna said, passingly, as if it had only just occured to her to say it.

Hannah heard Neville say something that made her sadder than the box of old wrappers had.

"Not as beautiful as you."

Hannah rolled over and let the nightmares of death and destruction overwhelm her. At the moment, they were kinder than her concious world.

**I know that was a lot of reflection and not much action, if you don't like that let me know.**

**Hope you enjoyed it and Review if you have comments or advice!**


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